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How Beijing’s Struggles Could Be an Opportunity for Washington 北京的困境可能成为华盛顿的机遇

BY ADAM S. POSEN 亚当·S·波森（ADAM S. POSEN）

August 2, 2023 2023年8月2日

• ADAM S. POSEN is President of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. 亚当·S·波森是彼得森国际经济研究所的所长。

As 2022 came to an end, hopes were rising that China’s economy—and, consequently, the global economy—was poised for a surge. After three years of stringent restrictions on movement, mandatory mass testing, and interminable lockdowns, the Chinese government had suddenly decided to abandon its “zero COVID” policy, which had suppressed demand, hampered manufacturing, roiled supply lines, and produced the most significant slowdown that the country’s economy had seen since pro-market reforms began in the late 1970s. In the weeks following the policy change, global prices of oil, copper, and other commodities rose on expectations that Chinese demand would surge. In March, then Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced a target for real GDP growth of around five percent, and many external analysts predicted it would go far higher. 随着2022年的结束，人们对中国经济以及全球经济的希望日益增长。经过三年的严格限制行动、强制大规模检测和无休止的封锁，中国政府突然决定放弃其“零COVID”政策，该政策抑制了需求，阻碍了制造业，扰乱了供应链，并导致了自上世纪70年代末市场化改革以来中国经济最显著的放缓。在政策变化后的几周里，全球石油、铜等大宗商品价格上涨，预期中国需求将激增。今年三月，时任中国总理李克强宣布了约5%的实际GDP增长目标，许多外部分析师预测这一数字将远远超过。

Initially, some parts of China’s economy did indeed grow: pent-up demand for domestic tourism, hospitality, and retail services all made solid contributions to the recovery. Exports grew in the first few months of 2023, and it appeared that even the beleaguered residential real estate market had bottomed out. But by the end of the second quarter, the latest GDP data told a very different story: overall growth was weak and seemingly set on a downward trend. Wary foreign investors and cash-strapped local governments in China chose not to pick up on the initial momentum. 最初，中国经济的一些部分确实实现了增长：国内旅游、酒店业和零售服务的内需释放都对复苏做出了实质性贡献。2023年前几个月出口增长，甚至备受困扰的住宅房地产市场似乎已经触底。但到第二季度末，最新的GDP数据却讲述了一个截然不同的故事：整体增长疲软，似乎走向下行趋势。对初期势头持谨慎态度的外国投资者和资金紧缺的中国地方政府选择不跟进。

This reversal was more significant than a typical overly optimistic forecast missing the mark. The seriousness of the problem is indicated by the decline of both China’s durable goods consumption and private-sector investment rates to a fraction of their earlier levels, and by Chinese households’ increasing preference for putting more of their savings in bank accounts. Those trends reflect people’s long-term economic decisions in the aggregate, and they strongly suggest that in China, people and companies are increasingly fearful of losing access to their assets and are prioritizing short-term liquidity over investment. That these indicators have not returned to pre-COVID, normal levels—let alone boomed after reopening as they did in the United States and elsewhere—is a sign of deep problems. 这种逆转比典型的过于乐观的预测失误更为重要。问题的严重性体现在中国耐用品消费和私营部门投资率的下降，这两者都降至较早时期的一小部分，并且中国家庭越来越倾向于将更多的储蓄存入银行账户。这些趋势反映了人们的长期经济决策，强烈表明在中国，人们和企业越来越担心失去对其资产的使用权，将短期流动性置于投资之上。这些指标没有恢复到疫情前的正常水平，更不用说像美国和其他地方一样在重新开放后迅速增长，这是一个深层次问题的迹象。

What has become clear is that the first quarter of 2020, which saw the onset of COVID, was a point of no return for Chinese economic behavior, which began shifting in 2015, when the state extended its control: since then, bank deposits as a share of GDP have risen by an enormous 50 percent and are staying at that high level. Private-sector consumption of durable goods is down by around a third versus early 2015, continuing to decline since reopening rather than reflecting pent-up demand. Private investment is even weaker, down by a historic two-thirds since the first quarter of 2015, including a decrease of 25 percent since the pandemic started. And both these key forms of private-sector investment continue to trend still further downward. 显而易见的是，2020年第一季度是中国经济行为的一个不可逆转的转折点，这一转变始于2015年，当时国家加强了对经济的控制。自那时以来，银行存款占GDP的比例已经增长了50%，并且一直保持在这个高水平。与2015年初相比，私人部门对耐用品的消费下降了约三分之一，自重新开放以来持续下降，而不是反映出积压需求。私人投资甚至更为疲弱，自2015年第一季度以来下降了历史性的三分之二，其中包括自疫情爆发以来下降了25%。而且，这两种关键形式的私人部门投资仍在进一步下降的趋势中。

Financial markets, and probably even the Chinese government itself, have overlooked the severity of these weaknesses, which will likely drag down growth for several years. Call it a case of “economic long COVID.” Like a patient suffering from that chronic condition, China’s body economic has not regained its vitality and remains sluggish even now that the acute phase—three years of exceedingly strict and costly zero-COVID lockdown measures—has ended. The condition is systemic, and the only reliable cure—credibly assuring ordinary Chinese people and companies that there are limits on the government’s intrusion into economic life—cannot be delivered. 金融市场，甚至中国政府本身，都可能忽视了这些弱点的严重性，这将很可能拖累经济增长数年。可以称之为“经济长期COVID”。就像一个患有这种慢性病的患者一样，中国的经济体并没有恢复活力，即使在严格而昂贵的零COVID封锁措施的急性阶段结束后，仍然表现得迟缓。这是一个系统性的问题，唯一可靠的解决办法是可靠地向普通中国人和企业保证政府对经济生活的干预是有限度的，但这是无法实现的。

China’s development of economic long COVID should be recognized for what it is: the result of President Xi Jinping’s extreme response to the pandemic, which has spurred a dynamic that beset other authoritarian countries but that China previously avoided in the post–Mao Zedong era. Economic development in authoritarian regimes tends to follow a predictable pattern: a period of growth as the regime allows politically compliant businesses to thrive, fed by public largess. But once the regime has secured support, it begins to intervene in the economy in increasingly arbitrary ways. Eventually, in the face of uncertainty and fear, households and small businesses start to prefer holding cash to illiquid investment; as a result, growth persistently declines. 中国经济长期COVID的发展应该被认识为它本身：习近平主席对疫情的极端应对所导致的结果，这在毛泽东时代后的中国之前是避免的。在威权政权中，经济发展往往遵循一种可预测的模式：政权允许政治顺从的企业蓬勃发展，得益于公共慷慨。但是一旦政权获得支持，它开始以越来越任意的方式干预经济。最终，在不确定和恐惧面前，家庭和小企业开始更倾向于持有现金而非流动性投资；结果，增长持续下降。

Since Deng Xiaoping began the “reform and opening” of China’s economy in the late 1970s, the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party deliberately resisted the impulse to interfere in the private sector for far longer than most authoritarian regimes have. But under Xi, and especially since the pandemic began, the CCP has reverted toward the authoritarian mean. In China’s case, the virus is not the main cause of the country’s economic long COVID: the chief culprit is the general public’s immune response to extreme intervention, which has produced a less dynamic economy. This downward cycle presents U.S. policymakers with an opportunity to reset the economic leg of Washington’s China strategy and to adopt a more effective and less self-harming approach than those pursued by the Trump administration and—so far—the Biden administration. 自从邓小平在上世纪70年代末开始中国经济的“改革开放”以来，中国共产党的领导层有意识地比大多数威权政权更长时间地抵制干预私营部门的冲动。但在习近平的领导下，尤其是自疫情爆发以来，中国共产党又回归了威权主义的平均水平。在中国的情况下，病毒并不是该国经济长期受挫的主要原因：主要罪魁祸首是公众对极端干预的免疫反应，导致经济活力不足。这种下行循环为美国决策者提供了一个重置华盛顿对华战略经济腿部的机会，并采取比特朗普政府和迄今为止拜登政府所追求的更有效、更少自我伤害的方法。

NO POLITICS, NO PROBLEMS, NO MORE 不涉及政治，就没有问题，再也没有了

Before the pandemic, the vast majority of Chinese households and smaller private businesses relied on an implicit “no politics, no problem” bargain, in place since the early 1980s: the CCP ultimately controlled property rights, but as long as people stayed out of politics, the party would stay out of their economic life. This modus vivendi is found in many autocratic regimes that wish to keep their citizens satisfied and productive, and it worked beautifully for China over the past four decades. 在疫情爆发之前，绝大多数中国家庭和小型私营企业都依赖于自上世纪80年代初以来的一种默契的“不涉政，无问题”协议：中共最终控制着财产权，但只要人们远离政治，党就会远离他们的经济生活。这种生活方式在许多威权政权中都存在，旨在让公民满意并保持生产力，而在过去的四十年里，这种方式对中国来说运作得非常出色。

When Xi took office in 2013, he embarked on an aggressive anticorruption campaign, which along the way, just happened to take out some of his main rivals, such as the former Politburo member Bo Xilai. The measures were popular with most citizens; after all, who would not approve of punishing corrupt officials? And they did not violate the economic compact, because they targeted only some of the party’s members, who in total make up less than seven percent of the population. A few years later, Xi went a step further by bringing the country’s tech giants to heel. In November 2020, party leaders made an example of Jack Ma, a tech tycoon who had publicly criticized state regulators, by forcibly delaying the initial public offering of one of his companies, the Ant Group, and driving him out of public life. Western investors reacted with concern, but this time, too, most Chinese were either pleased or indifferent. How the state treated the property of a few oligarchs was of little relevance to their everyday economic lives. 当习近平于2013年上任时，他开始了一场积极的反腐败运动，顺带着也干掉了一些他的主要竞争对手，比如前中共中央政治局委员薄熙来。这些措施受到了大多数公民的欢迎；毕竟，谁不赞成惩罚腐败官员呢？而且这些措施并没有违反经济契约，因为它们只针对党内的一部分成员，而这些成员总共占人口的不到百分之七。几年后，习近平更进一步地将国家的科技巨头制服了。2020年11月，党的领导人以杰克·马为例，他是一位公开批评国家监管机构的科技大亨，强制推迟了他旗下公司蚂蚁集团的首次公开募股，并将他逐出公众生活。西方投资者对此表示担忧，但这一次，大多数中国人要么感到高兴，要么漠不关心。国家如何对待少数寡头的财产与他们日常的经济生活关系不大。

The government’s response to the pandemic was another matter entirely. It made visible and tangible the CCP’s arbitrary power over everyone’s commercial activities, including those of the smallest players. With a few hours’ warning, a neighborhood or entire city could be shut down indefinitely, retail businesses closed with no recourse, residents trapped in housing blocks, their lives and livelihoods put on hold. 政府对疫情的应对完全是另一回事。它清楚地展示了中共对每个人的商业活动的任意权力，包括最小的参与者。只需几个小时的警告，一个社区或整个城市就可以无限期地关闭，零售业务无法追索地关闭，居民被困在住宅区，他们的生活和生计被搁置。

All major economies went through some version of a lockdown early in the pandemic, but none experienced anything nearly as abrupt, severe, and unrelenting as China’s anti-pandemic measures. Zero COVID was as unsparing as it was arbitrary in its local application, which appeared to follow only the whims of party officials. The Chinese writer Murong Xuecun likened the experience to a mass imprisonment campaign. At times, shortages of groceries, prescription medicines, and critical medical care beset even wealthy and connected communities in Beijing and Shanghai. All the while, economic activity fell precipitously. At Foxconn, one of China’s most important manufacturers of tech exports, workers and executives alike publicly complained that their company might be cut out of global supply chains. 所有主要经济体在疫情初期都经历了某种形式的封锁，但没有一个国家像中国那样经历了如此突然、严厉和持久的反疫措施。零COVID政策的实施既无情又随意，似乎只按照党的官员的心血来潮进行地方应用。中国作家慕容雪村将这种经历比作一场大规模的监禁运动。有时，北京和上海甚至富裕和有关系的社区也会出现食品、处方药和关键医疗护理的短缺。与此同时，经济活动急剧下降。在富士康这样一个中国最重要的科技出口制造商，工人和高管们公开抱怨他们的公司可能会被全球供应链排除在外。

What remains today is widespread fear not seen since the days of Mao—fear of losing one’s property or livelihood, whether temporarily or forever, without warning and without appeal. This is the story told by some expatriates, and it is in keeping with the economic data. Zero COVID was a response to extraordinary circumstances, and many Chinese believe Xi’s assertion that it saved more lives than the West’s approach would have. Yet the memories of how relentlessly local officials implemented the strategy remain fresh and undiluted. 如今仍然存在着自毛泽东时代以来罕见的广泛恐惧——害怕在没有警告和上诉的情况下，丧失自己的财产或生计，无论是暂时还是永久。这是一些外籍人士所讲述的故事，也与经济数据相符。”零新增”是对非同寻常情况的回应，许多中国人相信习近平的说法，即这种做法比西方的方法挽救了更多的生命。然而，当地官员如何无情地执行这一策略的记忆仍然清晰而纯粹。

Some say the CCP’s decision to abandon zero COVID in late 2022 following a wave of public protest indicated at least some basic, if belated, regard for popular opinion. The about-face was a “victory” for the protesters, in the words of The New York Times. Yet the same could not be said for ordinary Chinese people, at least in their economic lives. A month before the sudden end of zero COVID, senior party officials told the domestic public to expect a gradual rollback of pandemic restrictions; what followed a few weeks later was an abrupt and total reversal. The sudden U-turn only reinforced the sense among Chinese people that their jobs, businesses, and everyday routines remain at the mercy of the party and its whims. 有人说，中共在2022年底放弃“零COVID”政策，这是对民意的某种基本尊重，尽管有些迟来。《纽约时报》称这是抗议者的“胜利”。然而，对于普通中国人来说，至少在经济生活中并非如此。在“零COVID”政策突然结束的一个月前，高级党员告诉国内公众可以预期逐步解除疫情限制；然而几周后却发生了突然而彻底的逆转。这种突然的转变只加强了中国人的感觉，即他们的工作、生意和日常生活仍然受党和其所作所为的支配。

Of course, many other factors were at play in the immense, complex Chinese economy throughout this period. Business failures and delinquent loans resulted from a real estate bubble that burst in August 2021, and remain a persistent drag on growth and continue to limit local government funding. Fears of overregulation or worse among owners of technology companies also persist. U.S. trade and technology restrictions on China have done some damage, as have China’s retaliatory responses. Well before the onset of COVID, Xi had started to boost the role of state-owned enterprises and had increased party oversight of the economy. But the party had also pursued some pro-growth policies, including bailouts, investment in the high-tech sector, and easy credit availability. The COVID response, however, made clear that the CCP was the ultimate decision-maker about people’s ability to earn a living or access their assets—and that it would make decisions in a seemingly arbitrary way as the party leadership’s priorities shifted. 当然，在这一时期，中国庞大而复杂的经济中还有许多其他因素起到了作用。由于2021年8月房地产泡沫破裂，企业倒闭和不良贷款导致了一系列问题，这些问题持续拖累着经济增长，并继续限制了地方政府的资金。科技公司所有者对过度监管或更糟的担忧也依然存在。美国对中国的贸易和技术限制造成了一些损害，中国的报复性反应也起到了一定作用。早在COVID疫情爆发之前，习近平就开始加强国有企业的作用，并增加了党对经济的监督。但党也推行了一些促进经济增长的政策，包括救助、对高科技行业的投资和容易获取的信贷。然而，COVID疫情的应对明确表明，中国共产党是人们赚钱或获取资产的最终决策者，并且在党的领导层的优先事项发生变化时，它会以一种看似随意的方式做出决策。

SAME OLD STORY 老生常谈

After defying temptation for decades, China’s political economy under Xi has finally succumbed to a familiar pattern among autocratic regimes. They tend to start out on a “no politics, no problem” compact that promises business as usual for those who keep their heads down. But by their second or, more commonly, third term in office, rulers increasingly disregard commercial concerns and pursue interventionist policies whenever it suits their short-term goals. They make examples of a few political rivals and large multinational businesses. Over time, the threat of state control in day-to-day commerce extends across wider and wider swaths of the population. Over varying periods, Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, Viktor Orban in Hungary, and Vladimir Putin in Russia have all turned down this well-worn road. 在数十年来抵制诱惑之后，习近平领导下的中国政治经济最终屈服于威权政权中常见的模式。他们通常会以“无政治，无问题”的承诺开始，对那些低调行事的人来说，一切照常进行。但是在他们的第二个或更常见的第三个任期内，统治者越来越不顾商业利益，只在符合他们短期目标时才采取干预政策。他们会以少数政治对手和大型跨国企业为例，以警示其他人。随着时间的推移，国家对日常商业的控制威胁逐渐扩展到更广泛的人群。在不同的时期，委内瑞拉的乌戈·查韦斯和尼古拉斯·马杜罗、土耳其的雷杰普·塔伊普·埃尔多安、匈牙利的维克托·奥尔班以及俄罗斯的弗拉基米尔·普京都走过了这条老路。

When an entrenched autocratic regime violates the “no politics, no problem” deal, the economic ramifications are pervasive. Faced with uncertainty beyond their control, people try to self-insure. They hold on to their cash; they invest and spend less than they used to, especially on illiquid assets such as automobiles, small business equipment and facilities, and real estate. Their heightened risk aversion and greater precautionary savings act as a drag on growth, rather like what happens in the aftermath of a financial crisis. 当一个根深蒂固的专制政权违反了“不涉及政治，没问题”的协议时，经济影响是普遍的。面对无法控制的不确定性，人们试图自我保险。他们紧紧抓住现金；他们投资和消费的比例比以前少，尤其是在汽车、小型企业设备和设施以及房地产等非流动资产上。他们更加谨慎的风险规避和更多的预防性储蓄对经济增长产生拖累，就像在金融危机之后发生的情况一样。

Meanwhile, the government’s ability to steer the economy and protect it from macroeconomic shocks diminishes. Since people know that a given policy could be enforced arbitrarily, that it might be expanded one day and reversed the next, they become less responsive to stimulus plans and the like. This, too, is a familiar pattern. In Turkey, for instance, Erdogan has in recent years pressured the central bank into cutting interest rates, which he hoped would fuel an investment boom; what he fueled instead was soaring inflation. In Hungary, a large fiscal and monetary stimulus package failed to soften the pandemic’s economic impact, despite the success of similar measures in neighboring countries. 与此同时，政府引导经济并保护其免受宏观经济冲击的能力减弱。由于人们知道某项政策可能会任意执行，可能会在一天扩大，第二天就被撤销，他们对刺激计划等的反应变得不那么积极。这也是一个熟悉的模式。例如，在土耳其，埃尔多安近年来一直施压央行降低利率，希望这将推动投资繁荣；然而，他推动的却是飙升的通货膨胀。在匈牙利，一项大规模的财政和货币刺激计划未能减轻疫情对经济的影响，尽管邻国采取类似措施取得了成功。

The same trend is already visible in China because Xi drove up the Chinese private sector’s immune response to government intervention. Stimulus packages introduced since the end of the zero-COVID policy, meant to boost consumer spending on cars and other durable goods, have not gained much traction. And in the first half of this year, the share of Chinese companies applying for bank loans remained about as weak as it was back in 2021—that is, at half their pre-COVID average—despite efforts by the central bank and finance ministry to encourage borrowing at low rates. Low appetite for illiquid investment and low responsiveness to supportive macroeconomic policies: that, in a nutshell, is economic long COVID. 同样的趋势在中国已经显现，因为习近平提高了中国私营部门对政府干预的免疫反应。自零COVID政策结束以来推出的刺激计划，旨在提振消费者对汽车和其他耐用品的支出，但并没有取得多大进展。今年上半年，申请银行贷款的中国企业比例仍然与2021年持平，也就是说，仍然只有其COVID前平均水平的一半，尽管央行和财政部努力鼓励以低利率借贷。对于非流动性投资的低需求和对宏观经济政策的低响应能力，简而言之，这就是经济上的长期COVID。

Once an autocratic regime has lost the confidence of the average household and business, it is difficult to win back. A return to good economic performance alone is not enough, as it does not obviate the risk of future interruptions or expropriations. The autocrat’s Achilles’ heel is an inherent lack of credible self-restraint. To seriously commit to such restraint would be to admit to the potential for abuses of power. Such commitment problems are precisely why more democratic countries enact constitutions and why their legislatures exert oversight on budgets. 一旦一个专制政权失去了普通家庭和企业的信任，要重新赢回信任就变得困难。仅仅恢复良好的经济表现是不够的，因为这并不能消除未来中断或征用的风险。专制者的致命弱点在于缺乏可信的自我约束。要真正承诺这种约束，就等于承认滥用权力的可能性。正因为存在这种承诺问题，更多民主国家才会制定宪法，他们的立法机构才会对预算进行监督。

Deliberately or not, the CCP has gone farther in the opposite direction. In March, China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress, amended its legislative procedures to make it easier, not harder, to pass emergency legislation. Such legislation now requires the approval of only the Congress’s Standing Committee, which is made up of a minority of senior party loyalists. Many outside observers have overlooked the significance of this change. But its practical effects on economic policy will not go unnoticed among households and businesses, who will be left still more exposed to the party’s edicts. 无论是故意还是无意，中国共产党已经朝着相反的方向走得更远了。今年三月，中国的全国人民代表大会修改了其立法程序，使得通过紧急立法变得更容易，而不是更困难。现在，这类立法只需要全国人大常委会的批准，而常委会由一小部分高级党派忠诚分子组成。许多外界观察者忽视了这一变化的重要性。然而，对经济政策的实际影响将不会逃过家庭和企业的注意，他们将更加受到党的法令的影响。

The upshot is that economic long COVID is more than a momentary drag on growth. It will likely plague the Chinese economy for years. More optimistic forecasts have not yet factored in this lasting change. To the extent that Western forecasters and international organizations have cast doubt on China’s growth prospects for this year or the next, they have fixated on easily observable problems such as chief executives’ fears about the private high-tech sector and financial fragility in the real estate market. These sector-specific stories are important, but they matter far less to medium-term growth than the economic long COVID afflicting consumers and small businesses at large, even if that syndrome is less visible to foreign investors and observers. (It may be apparent to some Chinese analysts, but they cannot point it out in public). And although targeted policies may reverse problems limited to a particular sector, the broader syndrome will persist. 经济长期COVID的结果是，它不仅仅是对经济增长的暂时拖累，而且可能在未来几年持续困扰中国经济。更乐观的预测尚未考虑到这种持久性的变化。西方预测师和国际组织对中国今年或明年的增长前景表示怀疑，主要关注的是首席执行官对私人高科技行业的担忧以及房地产市场的金融脆弱性等容易观察到的问题。这些行业特定的故事很重要，但对于中期增长来说，它们比经济长期COVID对消费者和小企业的影响要小得多，即使这种综合症对外国投资者和观察员来说不太明显（对一些中国分析师来说可能是明显的，但他们不能公开指出）。虽然有针对性的政策可能会扭转特定行业的问题，但更广泛的综合症将持续存在。

In recent months, Bank of America, the Economist Intelligence Unit, and Goldman Sachs, for example, have each adjusted downward their forecasts for Chinese GDP growth in 2023, shaving off at least 0.4 percentage points. But because the persistence of economic long COVID has not yet sunk in, and because many forecasts assume, erroneously, that Beijing’s stimulus programs will be effective, China watchers still overestimate prospects for growth in the next year and beyond. Forecasts of annual GDP growth in 2024 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (5.1 percent) and the International Monetary Fund (a more modest 4.5 percent) could be off by 0.5 percent or more. The need to correct downward will only grow over time. 近几个月来，例如美国银行、经济学家智库和高盛等机构都下调了对中国2023年GDP增长的预测，至少减少了0.4个百分点。但由于经济长期COVID的持续性尚未被完全认识到，并且许多预测错误地假设北京的刺激计划将会有效，因此中国观察家仍然高估了未来一年及以后的增长前景。经济合作与发展组织（5.1%）和国际货币基金组织（较为保守的4.5%）对2024年年度GDP增长的预测可能会高出0.5%或更多。随着时间的推移，下调预测的需求只会增加。

China’s private sector will save more, invest less, and take fewer risks than it did before economic long COVID, let alone before Xi’s second term. Durable goods consumption and private-sector investment will be less responsive to stimulus policies. The likely consequences will be a more volatile economy (because macroeconomic policy will be less effective in inducing households and smaller businesses to offset downturns) and more public debt (because it will take more fiscal stimulus to achieve the desired impact). These, in turn, will drive down average economic growth over time by reducing productivity growth, in addition to reducing private investment in the near term. 短期内的投资。 中国的私营部门在经历了经济长期COVID之后，将会更加注重储蓄，减少投资，并且承担更少的风险，更不用说在习近平连任之前了。耐用品消费和私营部门投资对刺激政策的反应将会减弱。可能的后果将是经济更加波动（因为宏观经济政策在促使家庭和小型企业抵消下行压力方面的效果将会减弱），以及更多的公共债务（因为需要更多的财政刺激才能实现预期的影响）。这反过来将通过降低生产率增长来降低长期平均经济增长，同时也会减少私营部门的投资。

Yet Xi and other CCP leaders may simply take this as vindication of their belief that the country’s economic future lies less with the private sector than with state-owned enterprises. Even before the pandemic, government pressure was leading banks and investment funds to favor state-owned enterprises in their lending, while investment in the private sector was in retreat. Research by the economist Nicholas Lardy has found that the share of annual investment going to China’s private-sector firms peaked in 2015 and that the state-owned share has risen markedly since then, year-over-year. Economic long COVID will reinforce this trend, for two reasons. First, private investors and small businesses will err on the side of caution and remain liquid rather than make large loan-financed bets. Second, any tax cuts or stimulus programs aimed at the private sector will deliver less immediate bang for the buck than investment in the state sector. Add to this Xi’s ongoing push for self-sufficiency in advanced technology, which is subjecting a growing share of investment decisions to even more arbitrary party control, and the outlook for productivity growth and returns on capital only dims. 然而，习近平和其他中共领导人可能会将此视为他们的信念得到证实，即中国的经济未来与私营部门的关系较少，而与国有企业的关系更为紧密。即使在疫情爆发之前，政府的压力已经导致银行和投资基金倾向于向国有企业提供贷款，而对私营部门的投资则在减少。经济学家尼古拉斯·拉迪的研究发现，中国私营企业每年投资的份额在2015年达到顶峰，而国有企业的份额自那时以来显著增加。经济长期后遗症将加强这一趋势，原因有两点。首先，私人投资者和小企业会谨慎行事，保持流动性而不进行大额贷款投资。其次，针对私营部门的任何减税或刺激计划所产生的效果不会像对国有部门的投资那样立竿见影。再加上习近平对先进技术自给自足的持续推动，这使得越来越多的投资决策受到更加武断的党的控制，从而导致生产力增长和资本回报的前景变得黯淡无光。

OPEN-DOOR POLICY 开放政策

U.S. and allied officials, some of whom see strong Chinese growth as a threat, might take heart from the country’s current ailment. But a slower-growing and less stable Chinese economy will also have downsides for the rest of the world, including the United States. If the Chinese continue to prefer saving in bank deposits rather than investing and continue to spend more on domestically delivered services than on tech and other durable goods that require imports, their overall trade surplus with the rest of the world will keep growing—any Trump-style efforts to curtail it notwithstanding. And when another global recession hits, China’s growth will not help revive demand abroad as it did last time. Western officials should adjust their expectations downward, but they should not celebrate too much. 美国和盟友官员中，有些人将中国强劲的增长视为威胁，他们可能会对中国当前的困境感到欣慰。然而，中国经济增长放缓和不稳定也会对世界其他地区产生不利影响，包括美国。如果中国人继续更倾向于将储蓄存入银行而不是进行投资，并且继续在国内消费服务而不是购买需要进口的科技和其他耐用品，他们与世界其他地区的整体贸易顺差将继续增长，即使特朗普式的努力试图限制也无济于事。而且，当下一次全球经济衰退来临时，中国的增长将无法像上次那样帮助恢复海外需求。西方官员应该调低他们的期望，但也不应过于庆祝。

Neither should they expect economic long COVID to weaken Xi’s hold on power in the near future. As Erdogan, Putin, and even Maduro can attest, autocrats who break the “no politics, no problem” compact tend to remain in office despite slowing, sometimes even cratering, growth. The perverse reality is that local party bosses and officials can often extract yet more loyalty from a suffering populace, at least for a while. In an unstable economic environment, the rewards of being on their good side—and the dangers of drawing their ire—go up, and safe alternatives to seeking state patronage or employment are fewer. Xi might take economic measures to paper over the cracks for some time, as Orban and Putin have done successfully, using EU funds and energy revenues, respectively. With targeted government spending and sector-specific measures, such as public-housing subsidies and public assurances that the government’s crackdown on tech firms is over, Xi might still temporarily boost growth. 他们也不应期望经济上的长期COVID会在近期削弱习近平的权力。正如埃尔多安、普京甚至马杜罗所证明的那样，那些打破了“没有政治，没有问题”默契的独裁者往往能够继续留任，尽管经济增长有时会放缓甚至崩溃。荒谬的现实是，在经济不稳定的环境下，地方党派领导和官员往往能够从受苦的民众中获得更多的忠诚，至少在一段时间内是这样。在寻求国家赞助或就业的安全替代选择变得更少的情况下，与他们保持良好关系的回报和招致他们愤怒的危险都会增加。习近平可能会采取经济措施来暂时掩盖问题，就像欧尔班和普京成功地利用欧盟资金和能源收入一样。通过有针对性的政府支出和针对特定行业的措施，例如公共住房补贴和政府对科技公司打击的公开保证，习近平可能仍然能够暂时提振经济增长。

But those dynamics will not last forever. As many observers have rightly pointed out, youth unemployment in China is troublingly high, especially among higher-educated workers. If CCP policies continue to diminish people’s long-term economic opportunities and stability, discontent with the party will grow. Among those of means, some are already self-insuring. In the face of insecurity, they are moving savings abroad, offshoring business production and investment, and even emigrating to less uncertain markets. Over time, such exits will look more and more appealing to wider slices of Chinese society. 但是这些动态不会持续太久。正如许多观察家所指出的那样，中国的青年失业率令人担忧，尤其是在受过高等教育的劳动者中间。如果中共的政策继续削弱人们的长期经济机会和稳定，对党的不满情绪将会增长。在有能力的人中，一些人已经开始自我保险。面对不安全感，他们将储蓄转移到国外，将业务生产和投资转移到海外，甚至移民到更不确定的市场。随着时间的推移，这样的离开将对更广泛的中国社会越来越具有吸引力。

Even if outflows of Chinese financial assets remain limited for now, the long-term incentives are clear: for average Chinese savers, who hold most, perhaps even all, their life savings in yuan-denominated assets, buying assets abroad made sense even before the pandemic. It makes even more sense now that prospects for growth at home are diminishing, and the risks from CCP caprices are rising. 尽管目前中国金融资产的外流仍然有限，但从长远来看，激励因素是明确的：对于普通中国储蓄者来说，他们大部分，甚至全部的人生积蓄都以人民币计价资产的形式存在，购买海外资产在疫情之前就是有道理的，现在更加合理。因为国内增长前景不容乐观，而中共的任性行为风险也在上升。

The United States should welcome those savings, along with Chinese businesses, investors, students, and workers who leave in search of greener pastures. But current policies, enacted by both the Trump and the Biden administrations, do the opposite. They seek to close off American universities and companies to Chinese students and workers. They restrict inward foreign investment and capital inflows, and they discourage Chinese companies from moving into the U.S. and allied economies, whether for production or for research and development. They reduce downward pressure on the yuan and diminish, in the eyes of ordinary Chinese people, the contrast between their government’s conduct and that of the United States. These policies should be reversed. 美国应该欢迎那些带来的节省，以及那些离开寻找更好机会的中国企业、投资者、学生和工人。但是，特朗普和拜登政府制定的当前政策却恰恰相反。它们试图关闭美国的大学和企业对中国学生和工人的门户。它们限制对外国投资和资本流入的限制，并阻止中国企业进入美国和盟国的经济体，无论是为了生产还是为了研发。它们减少了对人民币的下行压力，并在普通中国人眼中削弱了他们政府行为与美国之间的对比。这些政策应该被扭转过来。

Easing these restrictions need not involve reducing trade barriers, however much this might benefit U.S. economic and foreign policy on its own terms. In fact, if the American economy did a better job of attracting productive Chinese capital, labor, and innovation, those inflows would partly make up for the substantial economic costs incurred as a result of the U.S. trade conflict with China. Neither would Washington need to water down national security restrictions on critical technologies. To prevent illicit technology transfers by Chinese investors, the United States and its allies should, of course, restrict access to some specific sectors, just as they restrict certain sensitive exports. In truth, however, most Chinese intellectual property theft from U.S. companies takes the form of cybercrime, reverse engineering, and old-fashioned industrial espionage—that is, for the most part, it needs to be addressed directly by means other than restricting inward foreign investment. 解除这些限制并不一定意味着要降低贸易壁垒，尽管这可能会对美国的经济和外交政策带来好处。事实上，如果美国经济能更好地吸引有生产力的中国资本、劳动力和创新，这些流入将在一定程度上弥补由于美国与中国的贸易冲突而产生的巨大经济成本。华盛顿也不需要削弱对关键技术的国家安全限制。为了防止中国投资者非法转让技术，美国及其盟友当然应该限制对某些特定行业的准入，就像他们限制某些敏感出口一样。然而，事实上，大部分中国对美国公司的知识产权盗窃是通过网络犯罪、逆向工程和老式工业间谍活动进行的，这些问题大多需要通过其他手段直接解决，而不是通过限制外国投资来解决。

Removing most barriers to Chinese talent and capital would not undermine U.S. prosperity or national security. It would, however, make it harder for Beijing to maintain a growing economy that is simultaneously stable, self-reliant, and under tight party control. Compared with the United States’ current economic strategy toward China, which is more confrontational, restrictive, and punitive, the new approach would lower the risk of a dangerous escalation between Washington and Beijing, and it would prove less divisive among U.S. allies and developing economies. This approach would require communicating that Chinese people, savings, technology, and brands are welcome in the United States; the opposite of containment efforts that overtly exclude them. 消除对中国人才和资本的大部分限制不会削弱美国的繁荣和国家安全。然而，这将使北京更难以维持一个同时稳定、自给自足且严密党控的增长经济。与美国目前对中国的经济战略相比，这种新的方法更少对抗、限制和惩罚，降低了华盛顿和北京之间危险升级的风险，并且在美国的盟友和发展中经济体中更具凝聚力。这种方法需要传达出对中国人民、储蓄、技术和品牌在美国的欢迎态度，与明显排斥它们的遏制努力形成鲜明对比。

Several other economies, including Australia, Canada, Mexico, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam, are already benefiting from inflows of Chinese students, businesses, and capital. In so doing, they are improving their own economic strength and weakening the CCP’s hold at home. That effect would be maximized if the United States followed suit. If Washington goes its own way instead—perhaps because the next U.S. administration opts for continued confrontation or for greater economic isolationism—it should at the very least allow other countries to provide off-ramps for Chinese people and commerce, rather than pressuring them to adopt the containment barriers that the United States is installing. When it comes to Chinese private commerce, the United States should think in terms of suction, not sanctions, especially as the CCP exercises firmer control of Chinese businesses. 澳大利亚、加拿大、墨西哥、新加坡、英国和越南等几个经济体已经从中国学生、企业和资本的流入中受益。通过这样做，它们提升了自身的经济实力，削弱了中共在国内的掌控。如果美国效仿这种做法，这种效果将会最大化。如果华盛顿选择另辟蹊径，可能是因为下一届美国政府选择继续对抗或更加经济孤立主义，那么至少应该允许其他国家为中国人和商业提供出口，而不是施加压力要求它们采取美国正在建立的遏制壁垒。在涉及中国私人商业时，美国应该考虑吸引而非制裁，特别是在中共对中国企业加强控制的情况下。

The more Beijing tries to stave off outflows of useful factors of economic production—for instance, by maintaining strict capital controls and limiting listings of companies in the United States—the more it will deepen the sense of insecurity driving those outflows in the first place. Other autocrats have tried this self-defeating strategy; many were forced to keep temporary capital controls in place indefinitely, only to drive people and companies to make more efforts to get around them. As seen repeatedly in Latin America and elsewhere, including during the final decline of the Soviet Union, such policies almost invariably spur more outflows of people and capital. 北京越是试图阻止经济生产中有用要素的外流，比如通过严格的资本管制和限制在美国上市的公司，就越会加深驱使这些外流的不安全感。其他独裁者也曾尝试过这种自我毁灭的策略；许多人被迫无限期地保持资本管制，结果只是推动人们和企业更加努力地绕过这些限制。正如在拉丁美洲和其他地方反复出现的情况，包括苏联最后的衰落期间，这种政策几乎总是会刺激更多的人口和资本外流。

The Chinese economy’s affliction with economic long COVID presents an opportunity for U.S. policymakers to change strategy. Instead of trying to contain China’s growth at great cost to their own economy, American leaders can let Xi do their work for them and position their country as a better alternative—and as a welcoming destination for Chinese economic assets of all kinds. Even knowledgeable officials tend to overlook how well this strategy served the United States in facing down systemic rivals in the twentieth century. It is often forgotten that it was far from evident during the Great Depression that the U.S. economy could outperform fascist regimes in Europe, and similar uncertainty about relative growth performance recurred throughout much of the Cold War. Despite that uncertainty, the United States emerged victorious in part because it maintained an open door for people and capital, siphoning off talent and investment and, ultimately, turning autocratic regimes’ own economic controls against them. As the CCP struggles with its self-afflicted economic long COVID, that strategy is worth reviving today. 中国经济受到经济长期COVID的困扰，这为美国决策者改变策略提供了机会。美国领导人可以让习近平为他们做事，将自己的国家定位为一个更好的选择，并成为中国各类经济资产的欢迎目的地，而不是以巨大代价来遏制中国的增长。即使是知识渊博的官员们也往往忽视这种策略在20世纪面对系统性竞争对手时对美国的帮助有多大。人们常常忘记，在大萧条期间，美国经济能否超越欧洲的法西斯政权并不明显，而在冷战期间，关于相对增长表现的不确定性也一再出现。尽管存在这种不确定性，美国最终获得了胜利，部分原因是因为它保持了对人才和资本的开放，吸引了人才和投资，并最终将威权政权自身的经济控制措施用于对抗它们。随着中国共产党在自我困扰的经济长期COVID中挣扎，这种策略值得今天重新振兴。

CORRECTION APPENDED AUGUST 4, 2023 更正于2023年8月4日附录

An earlier version of this article used the term “savings” in a number of instances in which “bank deposits” or “savings in bank deposits” would have been more accurate. The text and the chart above have been updated. 本文的早期版本在多个地方使用了“储蓄”一词，而更准确的说法应该是“银行存款”或“银行存款中的储蓄”。上述文本和图表已经进行了更新。